Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Mapping physician Twitter networks: describing how they work as a first step in understanding connectivity, information flow, and message diffusion.
Twitter is becoming an important tool in medicine, but there is little information on Twitter metrics. In order to recommend best practices for information dissemination and diffusion, it is important to first study and analyze the networks. ⋯ To increase the dissemination potential, medical groups should develop a more cohesive community of shared followers. Tweet content must be engaging to provide a hook for retweeting and reaching potential audience. Next steps call for content analysis, assessment of the behavior and actions of the messengers and the recipients, and a larger-scale study that considers other medical groups using Twitter.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Exploring the value of technology to stimulate interprofessional discussion and education: a needs assessment of emergency medicine professionals.
The emergency department (ED) is an environment fraught with increasing patient volumes, competing priorities, fluctuating information, and ad hoc interprofessional clinical teams. Limited time is available to reflect on and discuss clinical experiences, policies, or research with others on the involved team. Online resources, such as webcasts and blogs, offer an accessible platform for emergency shift workers to engage in interprofessional discussion and education. ⋯ Owing to the sensitive dynamics of emergency medicine-and the preference among its professional staff to foster interprofessional discussion and education through personal engagement, in an unhurried, non-stressful environment-introducing and investing in online resources should be undertaken with caution.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
A web-based peer-modeling intervention aimed at lifestyle changes in patients with coronary heart disease and chronic back pain: sequential controlled trial.
Traditional secondary prevention programs often fail to produce sustainable behavioral changes in everyday life. Peer-modeling interventions and integration of peer experiences in health education are a promising way to improve long-term effects in behavior modification. However, effects of peer support modeling on behavioral change have not been evaluated yet. Therefore, we implemented and evaluated a website featuring patient narratives about successful lifestyle changes. ⋯ Usage of the lebensstil-aendern website corresponds to more positive lifestyle changes. However, as-treated analyses do not allow for differentiating between causal effects and selection bias. Despite these limitations, the trial indicates that more than occasional website usage is necessary to reach dose-response efficacy. Therefore, future studies should concentrate on strategies to improve adherence to Web-based interventions and to encourage more frequent usage of these programs.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Dec 2013
The effect of patient narratives on information search in a web-based breast cancer decision aid: an eye-tracking study.
Previous research has examined the impact of patient narratives on treatment choices, but to our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of narratives on information search. Further, no research has considered the relative impact of their format (text vs video) on health care decisions in a single study. ⋯ The observed increase in fixation duration with video patient testimonials is consistent with the idea that the vividness of the video content could cause greater elaboration of the message, thereby encouraging greater information search. Conversely, because reading requires more effortful processing than watching, reading patient narratives may have decreased participant motivation to engage in more reading in the remaining sections of the Web decision aid. These findings suggest that the format of patient stories may be equally as important as their content in determining their effect on decision making. More research is needed to understand why differences in format result in fundamental differences in information search.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Nov 2013
The good, bad, and ugly of online recruitment of parents for health-related focus groups: lessons learned.
We describe our experiences with identifying and recruiting Ontario parents through the Internet, primarily, as well as other modes, for participation in focus groups about adding the influenza vaccine to school-based immunization programs. ⋯ Using multiple online advertising strategies was effective for recruiting a large sample of participants in a relatively short period time with minimal resources. However, risks such as multiple submissions and potentially fraudulent information need to be considered. In our study, these problems were associated with providing an incentive for responding, and could have been partially avoided by activating restrictive software features for online questionnaires.